Kestrel House

A private house with an open kitchen and a client who had lived with a jointed worktop before. The island is 3 400 mm long with a full-height waterfall at both ends, and the whole thing — top, both returns and the two mitres — came out of a single 3200 × 1600 slab of V01 at 20 mm.

That is the practical case for large format stated as plainly as it can be: at 20 mm, a 3.4 metre island in a 1200 × 600 material is nine pieces and eight joints. Here it is one piece and two mitres, and the mitres are cut so the vein runs over the corner rather than meeting it.

The splashback and the utility room wall are L03 Rovere, an oak grain pressed into stone. The joinery is real oak; the splashback is not, because it sits behind a hob and gets cleaned with things oak does not survive.

The window sills are the same V01 at 12 mm, cut from the offcut. On a project of this size, the offcut from the island is not scrap — it is the sills, the two shelves and the utility worktop.